I’ve been following this book, Build your own Mini Metal Maker, for making a small paste extrusion printer.
So it’s a small LDM (Liquid Deposition Modeling) printer intended to work with metal clay that would then go into a kiln.
I haven’t gotten the thing printing quite yet, but the assembly is pretty much built, and I have pictures. So,… yea. Time to share pictures. Hopefully, I’ll find the time and motivation to get an official print, do a post-mortem and generate ideas for using it. I’m holding off on purchasing the metal clay and the kiln until the motors and firmware are verified to work correctly.
Ugh,… that kiln is going to be SO EXPENSIVE!
Some Snapiddy Snaps
The printer uses some odd Nema motors I’m not familiar with – linear Nema steppers. Instead of a rod to transfer rotation, there’s a threaded rod for linear movement.
It’s obvious to see where the overhangs were printed. The 3D print quality of certain surfaces is… less…
The book said to use 2cm wooden boards. Where am I supposed to get wooden boards of metric thickness? Sure, it’s probably easy for the book author. Did you check out the shape of the ‘k’ in his last name? He probably lives in a utopian metric paradise. Where’s a person in dystopian imperial America supposed to go to get 2mm plywood!? Maybe find a jointer, some inch-thick boards, and hope for the best?
Plus, I’m cheap – for right-angle alignment, I decided to bootleg it with shelf brackets that were advertised as “90 degrees” and “right angles.”
They were definitely not.
Alright, going cheap is out the window; and going with wood is out the window. 2020 aluminum extrusions all the way. It’s metric; it’s aluminum; it’s convenient; it’s sexier! It takes about the same level of hobbyist technology as wood (a credit card, Amazon account, and a hacksaw) but looks so much more pro.
The print bed surface is pretty rough. So that’s slated for a reprint—Bad 1st layer settings. Maybe I can replace it with thick sheet metal from the hardware store.
And I still need to buy some locking 10cc syringes. Until then, I had some non-locking ones fill in as stand-ins.
This is also the 2nd computer. The first Arduino started randomly smoking and then died when I got ready to figure out how to upload the firmware. Stuff wasn’t even plugged into it yet, just USB and power. Hopefully, it was an anomaly and not an issue with the RAMPS shield.
